Bube's distinction between different types of errors seems to be
necessary indeed,
but it may nevertheless be argued for Maatman that what Bube calls
Type 1 Errors
in the Bible cannot be properly called errors at all, since this
would imply ignoring
the writer's universe of discourse: the conflicts may he interpreted as being
semantieal rather than factual ones. We might call these errors Type 3 Errors
and maintain with Maatman that the Bible contains neither Type 1 nor
Type 2 Errors.

Bube would agree with Maatman that the error in the statement
"the sun rises"
may be dismissed very easily, although he insists on calling it a Type 1 Error.
In matters liable to be subject to scientific investigation, the
Bible's language
is phenomenological. In fact, any other kind of language would not be
understood
by all people of all times, and would, furthermore, risk being in conflict with
the scientific opinions of any one time period, even if entirely free of Type
1 Errors.

Some examples of Type 3 Errors: The Biblical writer would state: "The sun
rises"-the Holy Spirit implying in addition "as men see
it". Jesus
talks of the "mustard seed-smaller than any seed"-implying
in addition
"of those you know". These might look like ad-hoc hypotheses, falsely
attributing to God a "reseroatio men falLs", but everybody
uses language
in exactly the same way in ordinary, every-day speech-indeed it would he quite
impossible to go back, each time we say something, through all the
steps of logical
reasoning and define each axiom underlying our expressions.

Mark says "All Judea and all the Jerusalemites came out to him (John) and
were baptized"-even though he and all his readers know perfectly well that
many stayed hack. Stephen's account in Acts 7:4 concerning Abraham's
leaving Haran
"after his father's death" seems to be in conflict with the
combination
of Terah's age when his first son was born (70), Terah's age at his death (205)
, and Abraham's age when he left Haran (75). One might, however, suggest that
Stephen meant to say "immediately after we read, in Gen. 11:32, of Terab's
death, we read, in Gen. 12:1, of God removing
Abraham into this land". It is difficult to imagine that Matthew, with his
wealth of Old Testament quotations, ignored the four Judean kings he left out
of his genealogy in Mat. 1; nevertheless he states: "There are
]A generations..."
(one might have to find a different translation for
"genca"); one gets
the impression he purposely arranged the genealogy in this way, in
order to make
it three times 14 generations, as a help for memorizing it, or for reasons of
symbolism. That the expression "X begot 1" need not necessarily imply
direct fathership can be seen, for instance, in 1 Chr. 4:8, where we
read "X
begot ... the families of Y the son of Z".

Although I agree with Maatman that there are lots of scientific
problems the General
Theory of evolution has not solved, and that this theory is an
unprovable hypothesis,
I do not endorse his belief that a correct interpretation of the Bible requires
"specific and unique instantaneous creative acts of God"
for the creation
of man and animals. Gen. 2:7 does not indicate how long God took to form man;
the fact that he takes nine months to form a baby and 20 years to form an adult
does not detract from his glory. In Gen. 1, the expressions "God
created",
"God made", and for instance "the earth produced' are apparently
used in a parallel fashion, suggesting that the same occurrence might possibly
be considered either a creative act of God, or an act of forgiving by God, or
even a natural growth process.

It certainly was not God's primary purpose to give us any kind of
scientific historical
sequence of creation, in Gen. 1, yet I am astonished at bow well Gen. 1 can he
harmonized with what we know of Earth's history; and here I tend to go somewhat
further than Bube in interpreting details. God being the designer of
this historical
sequence of events, he might have arranged them in a way that teaches
us spiritual
lessons: the report might present both a theological and a historical sequence
at the same time.

My main reason, however, for feeling that some kind of generalized
evolution might
he true is the impression that it would give the history of creation a cosmic,
majestic dimension somewhat like the impression we get when reading
Gen. 1, providing
for even greater possibilities of our glorifying the Creator than we would have
on the basis of a few acts of instantaneous creation. The more we learn of the
immensities of space around us and time behind us, and the more we learn about
the intricacies of the design of "natural mechanisms" chance
in the scientific
sense of the word does not rule out a first cause, the more deeply
we can appreciate
the greatness of our God in creation.

Bube's critique of Maatman is really extremely generous. At best, Maatman's article
appears to be hastily written. Surely a careful rereading would have dictated
the attention of "The Bible speaks on whatever
it speaks to something less tautological. I would
hope that in a second reading it would have occurred to Maatman that
his recommended
imaginary line-drawing effort could at best only demonstrate the impossibility
of drawing lines. Surely it cannot demonstrate Biblical reliability
as he claims
it does. The total unreliability of scripture is an equally possible
conclusion to this demonstration.

Bube passes over a glaring error in Maatman's hermeneutical methodology with
a mild comment on inconsistency. It is clear that what Maatman
calls "the
best position" can never be carried out. The difficulty is that
if each passage
of scripture can only be interpreted in the context of all of
scripture, the interpretation
of each passage requires a procedure with an infinite number of
steps. To interpret
any given passage requires knowledge of all the rest of scripture.
But such knowledge
can only be obtained by examining all of scripture and since
scripture is composed
of different passages which must be interpreted in light of all of scripture,
we must proceed through an infinity of steps. We are caught in an endless loop.
No interpretation of scripture is possible under such a method. Since Maatman,
I presume, is not of infinite age and yet he appears to have an interpretation
of scripture, I conclude that he has abandoned his own method and drawn a line
between relevant and irrelevant passages for this interpretation of a
given passage.
How he does this in light of his own insistence on the impossibility of drawing
lines is beyond me. But it seems grossly unfair of him to deny Bube the right
to draw lines when he himself does so.

I. Maatman's position would benefit greatly from careful linguistic analysis.
In general he is not precise in his use of ordinary language.

1. Typical of this problem are Maatman's parallel statements,
"No archaeological
findings ... could show that the New Testament is not to he the guide
for un
derstanding the Old Testament and "No archaeo
logical findings could prove that the Bible contains error" (82, italics
ours). "Could" is used equivocally. The mistake is similar
to the philosopher's
analytic/ synthetic distinction. There is no logical contradiction involved in
a Bible containing errors of fact. (That there is a theological issue
is not the
present question.) On the other hand, Bube's thrust is that
principles of interpretation
are not falsifiable on the basis of archaeological data, for example.
Principles
of interpretation are at a prior level of logic. Hence there is a
category mistake
in an assertion that archaeology could prove or disprove the New and
Old Testaments
disjoint. We might, in this case, be forced into agnosticism.

2. The syllogism Buhe formulates in his critique (86) cannot he
blindly accepted
by Maatman as conclusive logical proof for inerrancy. Like the
ontological argument,
this reasoning must be given careful analysis to discover hidden flaws in the
use of ordinary language. Buhe emphasizes a crucial distinction by
using "Absolute
Truth" in proposition (a) and "absolute truth" in
proposition (b).
If these terms are not equivalent in both uses, then the whole argument fails
to be logically certain.

II. Bube's position would benefit from better definition of the
operational principles
one uses to determine minimum revelational content of the Bible, and
hence a minimum
orthodox Christian confession.
Suppose, for example, one decides that the bodily resurrection of Jesus is not
a part of the revelational
content of the New Testament-that what is being taught is a romantic triumph of
good over evil, The
creeds and writings of the early Church notwithstanding, how does
one argue for
or against this position?

I agree mostly with Maatman's position and mostly with Bube's arguments, but have
some definite disagreements with each.

I agree with Maatmaan's basic position that the Bible is completely
free of error,
and that no successful classification of errors into acceptable and
unacceptable
types has been produced. (This is my one large disagreement with Bube's argument.)
The revelational content of the Bible is too closely' interwoven with
its historical
and descriptive contents for any error in the latter to have no effect on the
former. An error in most cases cannot be Buhe's type 1 without also being type
2.

Buhe states more clearly than Maatman the general principles and
cautions necessary
in interpretation of the Bible, and Maatmnan emphasizes the
importance of considering
each specific passage by itself as well as by general principles
stated in other
passages. Both are right, with each slightly over-emphasizing his
point, although
that may be unavoidable in a debate-like situation. Both would
probably come out
more balanced in a simple, careful exposition of their position by itself, not
in contrast with the other's.

I agree with Bube's argument that archaeology and other fields of
research could
prove the Bible contains error. Such proof is nonexistent, but it is
not impossible
or inconceivable. Maatman bases ton much on philosophy and too little on facts;
Bube correctly replaces logical proof with reasonable evidence as an adequate
basis for questioning the historical accuracy of the Bible.

As for the question of the definition of "error", the definition that
best satisfies me is one based on the intended meaning of the author. I believe
that that meaning must he taken to be absolutely' correct, but also that great
care and caution must be applied in determining what that intended meaning is.
It seems that often those who believe the Bible authors' meaning to
he infallible
are too ready to be dogmatic about many details of what that meaning
is, and often
even mistake their own feelings and opinions for the Bible's. This
does not mean
there are not a number of points on which the Bible is unmistakably plain; it
also does not excuse those who over-react to the one extreme by going
to the other
extreme of saying the authors' meaning is not necessarily inerrant. I hesitate
to refer to Bube's position as an extreme, when it is so conservative compared
to much that is said in the name of theology, but I do believe he goes beyond
the point of balance on this particular question. The outlook that satisfies me
on such questions as whether the Bible is in error in saying the
"sun rose"
is that the writers are using the universal, theory-independent
language of appearances.
They mean to he reporting that they observed, and there is no sense in which
they are thereby in error. Similarly, the mustard seed was the
smallest seed with
which they were familiar, and Jesus' referring to it as such is in no sense an
error. All in all, this view seems to me to avoid the problems that Maatman
encounters with his concept of complete agreement with absolute truth, and also
the problems Bube encounters in trying to determine the purpose of the writers
and thus distinguish acceptable errors from unacceptable errors.

Finally, a comment on Bube's final challenge to creationists to
produce a theory
consistent with all the facts: I'm not sure what extent of detail in
interpreting
the facts Buhe is challenging creationists to produce. Be that as it may, the
point is that evolution has been developed quite explicitly and in detail, and
encounters some explicit and serious difficulties with the facts. It
is not necessary
to develop a workable detailed alternative before criticizing an
existing theory;
Bube's challenge is not valid as a reason for tentatively accepting evolution
for now, nor for dropping the basic creationist view. I believe the Bible rules
out anything resembling the fullblown theory of biological evolution
from amoeba
to mail, by very clearly describing a series of separate creative
acts and emphasizing
"after their kind" to the point of tedium. I do not,
however, dogmatically
endorse any one of what seem to me to he several Biblically possible specific
views of the "where" and "when" of the creative
acts. Bribe's
challenge is valid as a goal toward which creationists should work,
and as a criterion
for choosing among the several possible interpretations of the Bible.
It is valid
as a challenge to creationists who have proposed detailed theories;
for instance
all versions I have seen of the pre-flood vapor-canopy theory are
physically impossible.
Exactly' how Bnhe's challenge should be taken by Maatman, I won't
presume to judge,
but he definitely need not take it as a reason to quit rejecting evolution or
advocating the basic points of creationism.